Guide to Affiliate Marketing
As an Affiliate Marketer, it took a lot of time to figure out how to master Affiliate Marketing and which program to use. Below are some programs I have been involved with, or have learned from people who have been involved with. The links below are affiliate links, and I will get a commission on any of the programs you may decide to purchase. This is at no additional cost to you. The price would be the same with or without an affiliate link.
Deciding on a Niche
A niche is simply the group of products you want to promote. For example, if you are promoting in the technology niche, then all the products and services you would choose would be in some sort of tech. Gadgets, phones, computers, and associated services. It’s important to choose one at a time, as driving traffic to your particular offers will need to have the same interests to have any chance of a sale.
Finding Offers
There are tons of Affiliate networks out there.
Here are a couple of the most popular:
1. Clickbank
2. Maxweb
3. Moreniche
Each of these platforms have a lot of products, support and built in programs to help you be successful.
Finding a Program
It is possible for you to spend months on end scouring the internet to figure out how to do Affiliate marketing on your own. Most free information out there will give you the basics, but usually stop short of giving you the real meat and potatoes of whatever training to entice you to buy their particular program. Though, do you even know what you need to know? What are the costs? Are there pitfalls? Is there a best way to succeed?
There are several ways that people do Affiliate Marketing. Below are the most popular methods at the time of the writing of this article.
SEO Website
Building a website as an affiliate marketing expert needs SEO to get that organic traffic. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically trying to get a website to show on the top of the Google Search Engine. There are companies who spend a ton of money on figuring out how to get that #1 spot. It requires a blog or website that focuses on keywords within their posts to “organically” drive traffic to their site. However, there are lots of ways to optimize fly our site for SEO.
Click here on how to start a business.
Another means Affiliate Marketers use to drive traffic to their offers is through YouTube. Do you like the idea of making videos? YouTube has millions and millions of members. People are looking for ways to do something. No matter what it is, you can do a search, and there is likely a video on how to do whatever it is.
Maybe being on camera isn’t your thing. There are tons of animation software out there to help you make videos where you don’t have to be in front of a camera.
YouTube is a tried and true method to drive traffic to your offers.
Paid Traffic
Probably the fastest way to get sales in Affiliate Marketing is through paid traffic. There are several places to get that Paid Traffic.
1. Google Ads / Bing Ads: These are search engines that use key words to drive traffic to your landing page / offer.
2. Social Media: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest, etc., all have an advertising platform.
3. Website Native Ads: This involves paying for advertising space on websites. Of course you would want to make sure the site is related to your offer. No point in advertising “how to build a kite” on a golf website.
There are others, but the above methods are the most popular, and currently most lucrative.
A cornerstone to building a successful Affiliate Marketing business is Email Marketing. Email Marketing requires you build an email list of people by various methods who are interested in the niche you are promoting. You can build the list yourself or purchase lists from others. Then construct a series of emails to entice the people on your list to visit the vendor site. Unlike other methods, you can usually link directly to the vendor (the owner of the product you are promoting) page without a pre-sell or landing page. If you are building your list, then you will want to have a email capture function on your landing page to get emails. There are lots of software / plug ins to allow you to do this.
Traffic
Life blood of Affiliate Marketing is Traffic. Traffic simply means visitors to your offer. In most cases, you will need to have what is called a pre-sell page or landing page. This is simply a website you control to filter out potential buyers before sending them to the offer site. Many of sites will require a pre-sell page, and will not allow direct linking to the vendor page. If you do e-mail list building, then you will want a pre-sell page to capture email addresses for re-targeting. You want your traffic to be high quality. This means the visitors coming to your site are already interested in your offer in some way. That makes them more likely to buy. Even then, the average percentage of people you drive to the vendors site that buy is around 1%.
Misc Affiliate Programs
Several major retail stores have Affiliate programs. Stores like Amazon, Walmart, Best buy etc. Have programs, but they generally have a very low commission. Usually under 10%. You can make money on those platforms, but they are usually to help bolster other income streams, and not a sole source of income. Personally, promoting their products take the same amount of time and energy as higher ticket items, so unless you are running a blog with a rich niche full of products and services, and have specific products that are related to that niche, these Affiliate networks (in my opinion) are not worth the work you need to put in as compared to higher commission products and services.
What About Us?
The first program I joined is called Commission Hero. It is through Robby Blanchard who teaches you how to run ads through Facebook. Which is Paid advertising. His program is one of the few where the founder (AKA Robby) actually will personally answer questions, and help students out. Just be prepared. Starting this kind of business with less than $5K is not recommended. You can start with less, but it will be difficult. Beyond the initial cost for the program, there is subscriptions you will need, and outsourcing Ad Copy and Images through sites like Fiverr. Not to mention the cost of advertising. Lots of students are making lots of money. So, it works, but just don’t assume that the program is the only expense.